1.

ABSTRACT

Cells are the basic functional units of all living organisms. They may exist singly or
in aggregates. When cells join together to take on a specialized function within a
larger organism, they form a tissue. The cell is divided into two groups which are
animal and plant cell. This experiment is conducted to investigate the structure of
animal cell and plant cell by using onion and chicken as a specimen. Apart from that,
it is carried out to understand how the microscope operates and study the differences
between animal and plant cell. The microscope is used in the experiment to observe
the specimen. In this experiment, the small section of onion and chicken is cut and
put on the slide. A drop of safranine solution is added and the observation is
recorded. The best image recorded when the 40X magnification is used. The
structure of onion and chicken cell can be seen clearly. As the magnification
increased, the more clear observation can be made.

2.0

INTRODUCTION

All living things are made up of tiny little units called cells. A cell is a basic unit of
all forms of life, but it is also the smallest living thing in the world. Cells consist of
an outside boundary called the cell membrane and inside the cell there is material
that known as cytoplasm. There are two classifications of cell which are plant and
animal cell.
2.1

Plant cell

An onion is a multicellular (consisting of many cells) plant organism. As in all plant

cells, the cell of an onion peel consists of a cell wall, cell membrane, cytoplasm,
nucleus and a large vacuole. The nucleus is present at the periphery of the cytoplasm.
The vacuole is prominent and present at the centre of the cell. It is surrounded by
cytoplasm. The presence of a cell wall and a large vacuole are indicators that help
identify plant cells, such as seen in the onion peel (Sullivan, 2015).

Figure 1: The structure of onion peel cells (Online Labs, n.d)

2.2

Animal cell

As in all animal cells, the cells do not possess a cell wall. A cell membrane that is
semi-permeable surrounds the cytoplasm. Unlike plant cells, the cytoplasm in an
animal cell is denser, granular and occupies a larger space. The vacuole in an animal
cell is smaller in size, or absent. The nucleus is present at the centre of the cytoplasm.

The absence of a cell wall and a prominent vacuole are indicators that help to
identify animal cells, such as cells seen in the chicken fat or human cheeks.

Figure 2: The structure of cheek cells (Online Labs, n.d)

2.3

Compound microscope

In order to observe the structure of cells and examine differentiation between animal
and plant cell, a microscope play the main role in the experiments. First, the purpose
of a microscope is to magnify a small object or to magnify the fine details of a larger
object in order to examine minute specimens that cannot be seen by the naked eye.
The compound microscope has its parts and plays their function together.

Figure 3: The part of compound microscope and its functions (Trimpe, 2003).
3.0

OBJECTIVE
3

4.0

To determine the structure of plant cells and animal cells.

To investigate how to handle the microscope and its function.
To understand the differences between plant cells and animal cells.
THEORY

The compound light microscope is a microscope with more than one lens and has its
own light source. These microscopes have an ocular lenses in the binocular eyepieces
and objective lenses in the rotating nosepiece closer to the specimen. All of the parts
of a microscope work together as the light from the illuminator pass through the
aperture, through the slide, and through the objective lens, where the image of the
specimen is magnified. Then, magnified image continues up through the body tube of
the microscope to the eyepiece, which further magnifies the image the viewer then
sees.
4.1

Magnification

Usually, the compound light microscopes have the lowest power lens is 3.5 or 4x and
is used primarily for finding the specimens. The most often used objective lens is the
10x lens as it gives a final magnification of 100x with a 10x ocular lens. For
example, when deal with a very small protest and for details in prepared slides such
as cell organelles or mitotic figures, the higher magnification is needed (Caprette,
2012).
In more details, in order to determine the total magnification, take the power of the
objective lens which is 10x or 40x and multiply it by the power of the ocular or
eyepiece which is normally 10x. Therefore, a 10x eyepiece used with a 40x objective
lens will produce a magnification of 400x. The naked eye can view the image or
specimen 400 times greater of magnified and microscopic details is discovered.

Table 1: The total magnified of an object by microscope (Amrita, n.d)

4

Magnification of ocular

Magnification of objective

Total magnification

lens
10X
10X
10X
10X

lens
4X
10X
40X
100X

40X
100X
400X
1000X

Normally, high magnification lenses are 40x and 97x or 100x. The last two
magnifications are used totally with oil in order to improve resolution. Each time the
power of objective lens is higher, the specimen should be re-focus and re-center as
the magnification lenses are closer to the specimen which poses the risk of jamming
the objective lenses into the specimen. Lower magnification is impossible on a
compound microscope stand because of spatial constraints with the image correction
and illumination. Meanwhile, higher magnification is impractical because of the
limitations in light gathering ability and shortness of working distance required for
very strong lenses (Wolniak, 2004). Parfocal are the good quality of lenses that is
when magnification is change, the specimen remains in focus or closed to focus. All
specimens have three dimensions and unless the specimen is extremely thin, the high
magnification objective will be unable to use. The higher the magnification, the
harder it is to "chase" a moving specimen.
Magnification is the ability to view an object as larger. A good image is obtained
when the amount of specimen detail is also increased. Magnification alone will not
achieve this.
4.2

Image Formation

The direct light from a specimen is projected by the objective and it spreads evenly
across the entire image plane at the diaphragm of the eyepiece. The light diffracted
by the specimen is come to focus at different localized sites on the same image plane,
and the diffracted light causes destructive interference. One of the consequences is
the reduction in light intensity resulting the greater or lesser dark areas. The patterns
of light and dark that are recognized as an image of the specimen as the eyes are very
sensitive to variations in brightness, and then the image becomes more or less
faithful reconstitution of the original specimen (Amrita, n.d). The objective lens at

first formed a real and inverted magnified image. Then the eye piece further
magnifies the same image to virtual magnified image.
5.0

MATERIAL AND APPARATUS

Material: Onion (plant cell), chicken fat (animal cell), safranin solution and distilled
water.
Apparatus: Compound microscope, microscope slides, cover slips, forceps, knife.
6.0

PROCEDURE

Plant cell
1. A small section of onion skin was peel off.
2. The onion skin was placed in the centre of the slide.
3. Two drops of water were placed on the onion skin and this situation known as
4.
5.
6.
7.

wet mount.
Then, a cover slip was lower over the onion skin gently.
The slide was tap with a pen to remove any air bubbles.
A drop of safranin solution was dropped at one edge of the cover slip.
The slide was placed on the stage under low power. The coarse adjustment

knob was used to focus on the sample.

8. Then, the nosepiece was rotate to medium power (4X). The knob adjustment
was used to focus and the observation was recorded.
9. The step 8 was repeated by changing the focus to high power (10X and 40X).
Animal cell
1. A small section of chicken skin was cut using the knife.
2. By using forceps, the chicken skin was placed in the centre of the slide.
3. The wet mount was prepared like in step 3-9 by using the same solution
which was safranin solution.
4. All the observation was drew in the paper.

7.0

RESULT

Magnification

Onion cell
Cells

Chicken cell

4X

10X

40X

8.0

DISCUSSION

Based on the result, the plant cell and animal cell showed the different structure
towards each other. The onion cell structure is a rectangular in shape. It had a cell
wall and nucleus when observe with the microscope. Meanwhile, the structure of
chicken cell is circle in shape. It has the cell membrane which is the outer most
layers in the animal cell that separates the contents of the cell from the outside world.
It consists of both lipids and proteins and is selectively permeable, which means it
permits only some molecules to pass through it (Cooper, 2000).
Compound microscope was used to observe the cell. The objective lenses used were
4X, 10X and 40X. When the microscopes total magnification was 40X, there were
about a hundred rows of rectangular cells but as the magnifications changed, the
number of cells in the field of view decreased. When the onion skin cells viewed at
400X total magnification, the nuclei of the cells looked clearer and larger compared
to the first magnification. The organelles such as the cytoplasm and the cell wall had
been seen. Unlike the onion skin cells, the chicken cells were more spread out from
each other and they all had a round shape. When the chicken cells were viewed at
7

40X total magnification, the cells were secluded and spread out. At 400X total
magnification, only one cell was viewed at a time, due to the fact that the cells were
separated from each other. The organelles those were visible in this type of cell were
the nucleus, the cytoplasm and the cell membrane. Aside from the actual cells, the air
bubbles had been seen within both the onion skin cell slide and the chicken cell slide.
This happen because the air bubbles were trapped within the slide. The air bubbles
should be removed by tapping the slide with pen or pencil during the experiment.
The animal cell is a little bit different than the plant cell for only a couple of reasons.
One is how the plant cell has a cell wall and the animal cell does not have it. The cell
wall protects and gives structure to the cell. The presence of a cell wall is what
provides the most significant difference between plant and animal cells, as it is
present only in plant cells and covers the cell membrane. The cell wall is rigid and is
composed of cellulose fibre, polysaccharides, and proteins. Despite the rigidity of the
cell wall, chemical signals and cellular excretions are allowed to pass between cells.
Apart from that, the plant cell have the cytoplasm meanwhile the animal does not
have it. Cytoplasm is a jelly-like material that is eighty percent water and is usually
clear in colour. It is also called cytosol. Cytoplasm contains all the organelles inside
the cell membrane. The cytosol contains dissolved nutrients, helps break down waste
products, and moves material around the cell through a process called cytoplasmic
streaming (Online Labs, n.d).
9.0

CONCLUSION

In this experiment, the structure of animal and plant cell can be identified via the
microscope. The microscope plays the main role in identification of cell. The
microscopes have objective lenses and ocular lenses where a magnified image of the
specimen is produced by the objective lens and image is magnified by ocular lens for
viewing. The specimen will be clearer as the total magnification increased. Through
this experiment, the different between animal and plant cell have been identified. The
plant cell has the cell wall, cytoplasm and vacuole. Unlike the plant cell, the animal
cell has cell membrane that controls the movement of substance in and out of the
cell.
10.0

RECOMMENDATION

There are a few of recommendation should be practice to improve the result of the
experiment such as:

Make sure the cell used is thin to get the accurate result.
Make sure to remove air bubbles by tapping the slide with a pen or pencil.
Handling the microscope properly. Once the cell is found, use the adjustment

knob to change the power focus but do not use the coarse adjustment knob.
Make sure the objective lens and ocular lens is clean using paper lens when
the images of specimens are blurred at particular power.

11.0

REFERENCES

Amrita V. V. (n.d.). Light Microscope (Theory): Cell biology Virtual Lab I:

Biotechnology and Biomedical Engineering: Virtual Lab. Retrieved
from http://amrita.vlab.co.in/?sub=3&brch=187&sim=323&cnt=1
Caprette, D. R. (2012, August 10). Light microscopy. Retrieved from
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~bioslabs/methods/microscopy/microscopy.
html

Cooper, G.M. (2000). The Cell: A Molecular Approach. 2nd edition. Sunderland
(MA):

Sinauer

Associates;

2000.

Structure

of

the

Plasma

Membrane. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9898/

Online Labs (n.d). Onion and Cheek Cells (Theory) : Class 9 : Biology :
Amrita

Online

Lab.

Retrieved

from

http://amrita.olabs.co.in/?

sub=79&brch=15&sim=125&cnt=1
Sullivan, J. A. (2015). Interactive Eukaryotic Cell Model. Retrieved from
http://www.cellsalive.com/cells/cell_model.htm
Wolniak, S. M. (2004). Principles of Light Microscopy. Retrieved from
http://www.life.umd.edu/cbmg/faculty/wolniak/wolniakmicro.html
Trimpe, T.

(2003).

Parts

of

the

Light

Microscope.

Retrieved

http://sciencespot.net/Media/microparts.pdf

12.0

APPENDIX
Onion Cell

Chicken Cell

4X:

4X:

from

10X:

10X:

40X:

40X:

10